The housing code in the Province of Ontario, Canada, makes it mandatory that an air barrier be provided, which provides a continuous seal about the entire house. In the industry there is a move toward controlling the leakage for air changes in the building to a level of approximately 0.3 air changes per hour. The provision of the air barrier assists in controlling this change. The code however requires that where ever there is a joint between the air barrier and structural members that there be an overlap of at least 4" and at that joint adjacent floors, foundation walls and ceilings, and that the air barrier be taped, caulked or otherwise fastened, and overlapped 4 inches at the joint and taped. However it has been found that at the floor specifically, it is difficult to lap as the floor is a solid member which can not be bypassed easily and which therefore results in many contractors caulking around the joint where the air barrier meets the floor. This caulking is expensive and time consuming. The same problem occurs for joists which cross the barrier perpendicular to the extension of the barrier, which requires that the barrier be cut and taped or caulked. Specifically referring to Section 11 in the building code entitled "Insulation, Air Barriers and Vapour Barriers", the teachings of which are hereby incorporated by reference, there is referred to at page 11-10 and 11-12 the requirement for sealing.
Further, the general guidelines of the Hudak reference which is in essence a guideline for the warranty for home owners and contractors a like, prepared by the Ministry of Housing for the Province of Ontario, Canada. Section 9.25 entitled "Thermal Insulation and Control of Condensation" and specifically 9.25.3.4 entitled "Air Barrier Materials" is hereby incorporated by reference and the teachings thereof also in 9.25.5 "Installation of Air Barriers System". Again reference is to the joint between the floor, ceiling and roof areas as described above, and the requirement of the ceiling by lapping, caulking or taping. This new portion of the code took in effect Jan. 1, 1991.
Other inventors have attempted to solve this problem by providing a enclosure system for housing. Such a system is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,786 and its equivalent Canadian Patent 1,230,461 which describes the use of a continuous barrier about a home. However, nowhere within this reference is there described a continuous air barrier formed by using a vapour barrier on the interior wall and supplementary portions extending from adjacent the interior wall to adjacent the exterior wall and returning again, around supporting members to adjacent the interior wall thus providing a continuous barrier to the elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,599,830 describes an energy saving building which includes a continuous barrier extending within the house and includes a tie plate and truss shoe which extends to the exterior wall of the house, as best seen in FIG. 1 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,830. Nowhere within this reference is there taught the method of construction which provides for supplementary portions used in conjunction with the vapour barrier and held in place by the vapour barrier with no other fastening which supplementary portion extends to the exterior wall from adjacent the interior wall and returning again by extending proximate supporting members back to the interior wall hence providing a continuous air permeable barrier as required by the code.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,194,328 describes a building which includes a continuous sheet of air vapour barrier extending from the building base, as best seen in relation to FIG. 3. A joint for the barrier is provided which barrier further covers the supporting members. However, the barrier is limited to the interior wall only and does not extend past the horizontal portions of the supporting members of the building to the outside wall and then extend back to the inside or interior wall along the next set of supporting members of the building.
United Kingdom Patent Application 2,136,844 describes a composite panel which has overlapped portions the composite panel being assembled with a membrane such as Tyvek (an air permeable membrane as known by those skilled in the art to meet building code requirements) (a Registered Trademark of the Dupont Corporation).
Nowhere within the prior are is there found a method of building a structure and the structure thereof which incorporates in combination a continuous barrier formed from the co-operation of the vapour barrier and supplementary portions, which are air permeable membranes, which extend proximate the floor and the foundation wall and preferably proximate the ceiling of the building structures. The supplementary portions extend from the interior wall along abutting adjacent structural members to the exterior wall and then extend to the next set of adjacent abutting portions thereof to return to the interior wall and being held in position only by the fastening together of the supporting members and the fastening of the vapour barrier over the overlapping portions of the air permeable membrane.
It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide a method of construction for a building.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a structure resulting from practising the method of forming a building.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a building which provides a continuous air permeable barrier for a building which is installed in a cost effective manner.
Further and other objects of this invention will become apparent to a man skilled in the art when considering the following summary of the invention and a more detailed description of the preferred embodiments illustrated herein.